ENTREPRENEURIAL

In A City that Works, we say "Hell yes!" to entrepreneurial ideas, innovation, and new ways of doing business.

Real businesses. Real issues.

"Cities need to recognize that at the end of the day they need to provide a service to their citizens, because citizens are their customers." - John Vardalos, President, JFive

The Chamber recommends

The Chamber recommends City Council put in place a fast track process when outdated, or a lack of, regulations are preventing a business from operating. A task force of innovative business leaders should be created to recommend to the City how they can better encourage and embrace new and disruptive business models.

What does Entrepreneurial mean in A Calgary that Works?

In A Calgary that Works, City Council says “Hell yes!” to new ideas and new business models.

There are many factors that help create a successful business community. Along with keeping costs competitive, processes efficient, and the tax system fair, there is an attitude in some cities that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship. We are competing against cities all over the world. Cities who are jumping at the chance to pilot self-driving vehicles, drones, or even just new brewpub concepts. It’s time to create A Calgary that Works, where we celebrate new ideas, we celebrate new businesses, and we create new jobs. That starts by saying: “You have a business idea? Hell yes! We can do that.”

Why is Calgary not currently Entrepreneurial?

We are a city that has taken pride in our entrepreneurial roots. However, we seem to have lost some of that. Too often we’ve found reasons not to do things, to slow things down, or delay decisions, rather than saying “Hell yes!” and finding a way. The City needs to find more ways to remove barriers, and support businesses in providing creative solutions to today’s complex problems. Instead of barring new businesses from entering Calgary or holding back existing companies with new ways of operating because regulations are not currently in place, processes should be established that allow market entry as quickly as possible.

Calgary has demonstrated the capacity for innovation in the past by adopting ideas like the ParkPlus system, Food Truck Pilot program, and the car sharing service Car2Go. The food truck program was a good example of the City quickly adapting to a new business model. By beginning with a pilot program, the City learned what worked, without over-committing city resources and was able to incorporate those lessons into the final regulations that were developed.

The City has also amended the Land Use bylaws to make it easier for buildings in the Centre City Enterprise Area to be converted from office buildings into residential space. This amendment eliminates the requirement for a Development permit, and in most cases instead only requires a Building permit. It would be encouraging to see this type of efficient process extended to buildings throughout Calgary.

While these examples illustrate the positive and innovative efforts made by The City of Calgary, they are the exception rather than the rule. We need to strive to make this the rule.

While the city has shown willingness to work with innovative companies in the past, it has also proven to be slow moving at times. A key example of this is the ridesharing bylaw that was eventually passed in April 2016. The two largest global ridesharing companies were founded in 2009 and 2012 respectively. Even though these companies were extremely disruptive to the traditional taxi industry, they were able to expand rapidly thanks to demand for their efficient business model. The cities that recognized their citizens wanted more transportation options quickly adapted to allow this innovative approach to transportation service delivery. Unfortunately, Calgary was slow to recognize this demand, and took until 2016 to put rules in place for ridesharing. An entrepreneurial city would have immediately recognized the opportunity that this new service delivery model represented, and ensured rules were put in place to allow these companies to operate.

We have seen other examples of the City being less than willing to work with new and innovative business models. The years of debate and frustration that City Council underwent to deal with secondary suites, is another example. We are one of the most outdated global cities when it comes to secondary suite policy and legislation. The fact that City Council cannot unite to create an opportunity for increased affordable housing in Calgary at no cost to the taxpayer is simply unacceptable.

The City of Calgary should look to other leading cities for new and innovative ways to work with businesses to solve community problems. Some examples where other cities are leading in terms of innovative policies include:

Edmonton – In 2011, Edmonton was the first Canadian city to receive an IBM Smarter Cities Challenge award. This award recognized Edmonton’s innovative use of information technology to benefit its citizens. The work that Edmonton has done to make all the data on the City and its infrastructure and operations open, has been an invaluable tool that has allowed innovators and entrepreneurs to find ways to make life and business better in their city. It is time to unlock the vault of data.

In partnership with Enerkem, the City of Edmonton is converting municipal solid waste into clean biofuels and green chemicals, such as ethanol and methanol. The Enerkem Alberta Biofuels facility is helping Edmonton to reduce the volume of waste sent to landfills by over 100,000 metric tonnes per year.

New York City – Many complex problems these days are being solved by incentive prizes whereby a pool of money is made available to the winner of a competition aimed at solving a certain problem. New York’s BigApps competition released city data to the participants and encouraged them to develop mobile applications to solve city-wide problems. Some of the winners included apps that identified healthy food options at nearby restaurants, helped parents find child-care, and helped homeowners calculate savings for a variety of solar power options.

Vancouver – Earlier this year, the City of Vancouver sponsored an open data competition. One of the winners came up with a budget visualization and editing tool that makes it simpler to understand and present municipal budgets. Through these types of competitions taking place in Vancouver and New York, Calgary’s next City Council can enable global minds to solve some of our biggest challenges like funding and finance, affordable housing, and transportation and infrastructure.

These cities are adjusting policies and regulations, allowing their businesses and residents to take advantage of new technologies, innovative business concepts, and open data. These cities are keeping up with the pace of innovation and business. With the economic conditions that we are facing in Calgary, and the competition globally for technology companies and their offerings, it’s crucial that the next City Council work hard to ensure that they keep up with the pace that businesses looking to operate in Calgary need them to in order to succeed.

For Calgary to continue to be a world class city, it needs a municipal government that is ready to work with businesses to solve complex problems in innovative ways. Unfortunately, many Calgary businesses do not have the impression that City Council has an “open for business” attitude. The Chamber’s recent Calgary Business Leader Market Perceptions survey indicated that one of the main ways the municipal government can support business is having a more business friendly perspective. This simple, and free, change would show that the City understands the importance of the business community, appreciates the work they do to create jobs, and recognizes the challenges they are facing.

How can Calgary become more Entrepreneurial?

The Chamber recommends City Council put in place a fast track process when outdated, or a lack of, regulations are preventing a business from operating. A task force of innovative business leaders should be created to recommend to the City how they can better encourage and embrace new and disruptive business models.

We are competing against cities all over the world. Cities who are jumping at the chance to pilot self-driving vehicles, drones, or even just new brewpub concepts. It’s time to create a Calgary that celebrates new ideas, new businesses, and creates new jobs. That all starts by saying: “You have a business idea? Hell yes! We can do that.”

Technological innovation is quickly changing what it means to run a business. In fact, technology is allowing for new business models that could not have been foreseen in the last election. This is why a Hell yes attitude is so important. A Hell yes attitude means giving different business models the opportunity to be tested and tried with the best conditions to succeed. Removing barriers to business creation can allow for new and creative ways to solve the world’s current problems

This all starts by creating a legislative process that will allow council to have pilot programs, or fast-track the change or implementation of bylaws and regulations when the absence, or lack of updated rules is preventing a business from operating. Similar efforts have been made in other leading cities in North America. In Chicago, a Special Deputy for Regulatory Reform was appointed to ensure the City’s regulations do not fall to the wayside as new services and business models emerge. A similar process should be established in Calgary. City Council should also look to its past success with the Food Truck pilot program when approached by businesses looking to provide services to Calgarians in new and innovative ways.

To assist with the creation of new policies or fast-tracked regulations, City Council should seek recommendations from a task force of innovative business leaders. To this extent, the City can follow the example of Toronto’s innovation team. In partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, Toronto put together an Innovation Team, tasked with solving municipal problems by creating partnerships with outside individuals, groups, and businesses. An “Innovation Task Force” can be put in place in Calgary to help advise the City on how to be nimble, and better embrace new and disruptive business models.

Moving forward, we need a City Council that is willing to support transformation, and willing to work with new business models. If the City had a framework in place to quickly adapt regulations, permits and by-laws when required, it would have a leg up on the competition. At the same time, the City should review and remove old regulations and policies that are no longer required. Calgary would be in a much better position to attract world class entrepreneurs and businesses.

Entrepreneurs understand the importance of getting stuff done. Like many budding entrepreneurs, its time for City Council to take pride in its ability to “get stuff done” and get regulations passed so new businesses can provide Calgarians with services, and jobs.

About the Calgary Chamber of Commerce

The Calgary Chamber is a member-driven organization that exists to help make businesses more successful, and in doing so, make Calgary the best place in the country to live, work and grow a business. It’s a job we’ve been proud to do for over 126 years.